


A Regret Full Life

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Kiss, Light Angst, M/M, making deals, tracking down death eaters, working together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's amazing how quickly a single day can change everything you thought you knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Regret Full Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely alisanne who gave me the prompt “quick decision”. Originally posted to Livejournal in 2013.

Snape had done many unsavoury things in his time. Most of them he refused to dwell on. They were locked away in a Pensieve and he had no desire to peek inside. He had lied and tortured and killed and over only a few of those moments did he feel anything akin to regret. He suspected that this would be added to that short list of regrets, as he grabbed Harry Potter by the shoulder and kissed him, pressing him up against the wall so that there was no escape.

Yes, regret indeed.

**Six Hours Previously**

“Absolutely not.”

“Severus...”

“No.”

“Don't make me order you.”

Snape glared up from his bed. If bed it could be called. A padded mattress on the floor in a cell filled by a large table and chairs and a bookshelf empty save for the book on Quidditch which he refused to even glance at.

“Severus, _please._ ”

Kingsley Shacklebolt hunkered down so that he and Snape were at eye level. Snape had to admit that Kingsley had seen better days. Being Minister for Magic was clearly taking its toll on the other man. And they did, after all, have something of a history...

“Must it be the Potter boy?”

“He's a young man, now Severus. And yes. I'm afraid that’s non-negotiable.”

“Is any part of this negotiable?” Snape asked. He sighed. Kingsley's silence said it all. He looked around his cell. After everything, after the truth was known and the Granger girl had managed to remember her potions lessons enough to bring Snape back from the brink of death, this was his reward.

“It won't be forever,” Kingsley said, as if he could read Snape's mind. “People just need to get used to you being one of the good guys.”

Snape glared at him. “They could get used to it with me living in my own home, just as easily as a cell in the Ministry’s basement.”

“Be thankful it isn't Azkaban,” Kingsley pointed out. “If Harry and Hermione, not to mention Lupin, hadn't stood up for you...”

Snape frowned at the mention of the werewolf. “How is Lupin? He...he sent me an owl.” Snape motioned to the table where the letter from Lupin still lay. With Tonks dead he was raising his young son on his own, and was rather hoping for a friend. Snape had been surprised to find the idea not entirely repugnant.

“He's doing okay. Worried about you.” Kingsley stood up and grimaced at his creaking knees. “There are a lot of people worried about you Severus. And a lot of people who need your help. I know it's a lot to ask, after everything you’ve done for us. But I think if this goes well I can get you released, for good.”

Snape's eyes narrowed at the prospect. If Kingsley was lying to him...

“There would be restrictions, of course,” Kingsley said. He shrugged, in a little too rehearsed of a manner for Snape's liking. “A curfew probably. Perhaps a magical tagging device...And some other, restrictions surrounding your work, but, you'd be out of here. You could possibly even return to Hogwarts, in some capacity.”

Snape quashed the feeling of hope that word gave him. After all he had done Hogwarts was still so very dear to him.

“Do I have time to consider the proposal?”

“No,” Kingsley said, shaking his head.

Snape sighed. No decision he'd made in haste had ever worked out for him.

“Very well,” he said. “I accept.”

* * * * *

Snape was glad of a change of clothes and the opportunity to have a long soak in a bath. He was hardly known for caring about his looks, but there was a limit to even his disinterest in his appearance. And then he allowed himself to indulge a little in the food that Kingsley had provided, as well as a steaming pot of tea that re-filled itself every time he used it. The silence of the kitchen area was pleasant too, after the moans and complaints of other prisoners. Snape had no real idea who they were, and was rather hoping he wouldn't have to find out.

Of course, his enjoyment couldn't last. And in entered Harry Potter.

Kingsley had been right, Potter was a man now. Four years had passed since the end of the war. Since Snape had opened himself up to the other man in a way he had never done for anyone before. Four years of healing. Of being hidden in the shadows because no one knew what to do with him. Of being locked away because the Ministry didn’t want the surviving Death Eaters to find a rallying point in him. Snape's words of disdain for _that_ idea hadn't swayed anybody. Even though he found it completely ridiculous that any one would turn to him after Voldemort, it was an idea that apparently kept some department heads awake at night.

“Hello, Professor,” Potter said and Snape was forced to acknowledge him.

“I am no longer your professor, Potter.”

“No, sir, I know, but, well...it's good to see you.”

Snape rather wished that Potter was lying. This whole enterprise was going to be insufferable enough as it was.

“Sit down.”

Potter did as he was told without argument, which disturbed Snape even more.

“I've brought the paperwork,” Potter said. He pushed a rolled up parchment across the table. Snape unfurled it and carefully read through it, aware that Potter was watching his every move. He wondered idly if Potter had been keeping up with his Legilimency but decided against trying to find out for himself.

“This all seems in order,” he replied. Potter went to hand him a quill even as one appeared in his hands. Potter looked surprised that Snape could use wandless magic and he managed to refrain from tutting at the boy's ignorance. Just.

He signed the parchment, which essentially gave Potter the right to “terminate as necessary” the former Death Eater Severus Snape, if their mission was not a success. Snape looked over at Potter, who looked uncomfortably like he didn't want to be there either. There might even have been a time that Snape believed Potter incapable of killing someone, but now the whole wizarding world knew better.

“Now what?” Snape asked.

Potter pulled out another parchment and handed it over. “We're supposed to track down three Death Eaters. Brothers. The Karamazov's. They've been doing minor acts of terror on the Continent and the Ministry thinks they're planning to head to London next.”

“Ah, yes,” Snape said, as he looked down at the pictures snarling back at him, “Igor, Vladimir and Alexander.”

“Did you know them well?”

Snape shook his head. “Thankfully not. Though I did meet them all once.” Snape looked off into the distance, remembering. “They gave a Muggle family to Voldemort as an offering of friendship.” He snorted. “The Dark Lord was even less impressed than I was.”

He looked up and realised that Potter had gone quite pale. Not quite a man yet, after all, then.

“We have a few leads,” Potter said, motioning towards the parchment. “Kingsley thinks you'll be able to track them. With my help.”

Snape lazily raised his glance so that he was looking Potter in the eye. Potter looked away first.

“Where first?” Snape asked. If he was going to undertake this project, then the faster they finished the better for everyone.

“Hogsmeade,” Potter said. “Alexander was spotted in Hogsmeade.”

Snape shook his head. “The man really is a fool. Of all the places to try and hide...”

“Oh, he's not hiding Professor. He's working there.”

* * * * * *

Snape had never felt completely comfortable in Hogsmeade. But then he supposed that he had never felt completely comfortable anywhere, not even at Hogwarts. All the layers of deceit he'd had to wrap himself in, some days he thought it a miracle that he even remembered who he was. Or perhaps that was his curse.

He kept to the shadows for the time being. Not wishing to let out all his secrets. It wasn’t that he didn't trust Potter – he was certain that the boy meant him no harm, but he had already seen too many of Snape's secrets, secrets at one time he would have thought he'd been willing to take to the grave. Which just proved that he didn't really know himself very well either.

“Over there,” Potter whispered. He crouched down by the fence and Snape did the same. Alexander Karamazov was giving out orders, and having them obeyed. He appeared to be in charge of the regeneration of Hogsmeade, which had suffered damage during the attack on Hogwarts and was now being expanded. “We think he's using some sort of Imperius curse to make everyone do as he asks.”

“So why does he simply not disappear onto the Continent?” Snape asked, more to himself than Potter. This behaviour did not make sense, even for one as idiotic as Alexander.

“Perhaps there's something...” Potter started to say, then stopped. One of the workers had moved into his line of sight. “Isn't that Igor?”

Snape moved closer to Potter, their arms brushing against each other as Snape peered closely through the holes in the fence.

“Yes, it is.”

“We should move somewhere else,” Potter said, and though it came across more as an order than a suggestion, Snape nodded. There was no point arguing with the boy when he was actually talking sense.

But then Igor was looking their way and Snape had a momentary glitch in sanity because he was kissing Harry bloody Potter, and not completely hating it. He pushed Harry up against the wall, his knees easily spreading open Potter's surprisingly pliable legs. One hand on his waist kept him in place, the other Snape kept near his head, shielding his own features with that and his hair. He realised that he should have stopped kissing Potter by now, but the infernal man was kissing him back and Snape's toes were curling despite himself.

Finally there was a break in momentum and Snape took a careful step away. Potter grabbed at his waist and pulled him closer, and before he could form a hex he was being kissed. It continued to not be entirely unpleasant.

“Igor has gone,” Snape said, once his senses had returned to him.

Potter was staring at him, open eyed and honest in a way Snape found vaguely nauseating.

“I expect so,” Potter said after a moment.

They stared at each other, Snape tightening and then loosening his grip on his wand, considering all the ramifications of modifying Potter's memories.

“I'd rather you didn't,” Potter said.

Snape didn't pretend not to know what he was talking about. Instead he took two further steps back. They still had a mission to complete, one in which his own future was irretrievably linked. He would perhaps regret destroying that more than his lapse in judgement with Potter.

“We should continue the search,” Snape said. He looked back down the alleyway so as to avoid Potter's gaze.

“All right,” Potter said. “We can talk afterwards.”

Potter moved first, a confidence to his walk that Snape had failed to notice before. Clearly he was under the influence of some sort of delusion, and would have to find time to concoct the perfect antidote. But first he supposed he and Potter could continue their work together. A lapse in judgement he hoped not to regret too soon.

At least not until he had explored all the avenues open to him, that is.


End file.
